Octopus Overlords

Max Peck wrote:Hrm, what sort of person would divert money from a charity to register someone for Boy Scouts?

The Donald Trump campaign hit back on Friday at an allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman aboard a plane in the 1980s, presenting a supposed witness to the alleged incident.

In a note provided to the New York Post by the campaign on Friday, Anthony Gilberthorpe said that he was sitting across from the businessman and Jessica Leeds on the flight and refuted the latter’s claims that Trump groped her.

“I have only met this accuser once and frankly cannot imagine why she is seeking to make out that Trump made sexual advances on her. Not only did he not do so (and I was present at all times) but it was she that was the one being flirtatious,”claimed Gilberthorpe, who is British.

On Wednesday, Leeds, now 74, spoke out in a New York Times report, alleging that Trump groped her while on a first-class flight to New York in the early 1980s. She told the Times, “He was like an octopus … His hands were everywhere.”

Leeds was 38 at the time of the alleged assault, and says she moved to the back of the plane without reporting the incident to airline staff.

Gilberthorpe, 54, told the Post in an interview that he saw no inappropriate interactions between Leeds and Trump. He claimed, however, that Leeds was “shrill” and “trying too hard,” and had told him that she “wanted to marry” Trump while the GOP nominee was in the bathroom.

He said that he has no evidence of his side of the story, but described his memory as excellent.

“What she said about Trump is wrong,” Gilberthrope asserted to the Post, adding, “If there’s evidence Trump’s done it, sure, hang him from the post, but I was there, I was in a position to know that what she said was wrong, wrong, wrong.”

GreenGoo wrote:

Max Peck wrote:Hrm, what sort of person would divert money from a charity to register someone for Boy Scouts?

At a guess I'm gonna say that Drumpf told a flunky to register Jr. for scouts but didn't give him any money, and said flunky was like "fuck this, I'm not paying out of my own pocket. Thanks, donors".

Skinypupy wrote:

malchior wrote:

Xmann wrote:WTF

If there's a hell, and I'm not the believing kind, fuckers like this should rot there.

Shit like this boils my blood.

No freaking wonder women don't report abuse.

Lou Dobb's is really, really sorry.

Suuuuuuuuuuure he is.

The former officials, who have served presidents in both parties, say they were bewildered when Trump cast doubt on Russia's role after receiving a classified briefing on the subject and again after an unusually blunt statement from U.S. agencies saying they were "confident" that Moscow had orchestrated the attacks.

"It defies logic," retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency, said of Trump's pronouncements.

Trump has assured supporters that, if elected, he would surround himself with experts on defense and foreign affairs, where he has little experience. But when it comes to Russia, he has made it clear that he is not listening to intelligence officials, the former officials said.

Defiant wrote:Trump's refusal to accept intelligence briefing on Russia stuns experts

In August, I wrote a column predicting that before the election Trump's tax returns would be hacked: "They'll likely show zero taxes paid, no charitable contributions, and scary ties to Russian oligarchs." Today we know that Trump paid no taxes and has next to zero charitable contributions. But we still don't understand his ties to Russian oligarchs. That shoe is about to fall.

During the October 9th debate, Hillary Clinton twice made an unusually strong condemnation of Russia: "Our intelligence community just... said that the Kremlin, meaning Putin and the Russian government, are directing the attacks, the hacking on American accounts to influence our election. And WikiLeaks is part of that... we don't even know if it's accurate information, and then they put it out. We have never in the history of our country been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election... They're doing it to try to influence the election for Donald Trump."

Trump responded: "Anytime anything wrong happens, they like to say the Russians are -- [Hillary] doesn't know if it's the Russians doing the hacking. Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia. And the reason they blame Russia because they think they're trying to tarnish me with Russia... I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia. I don't deal there. I have no businesses there. I have no loans from Russia."

In a debate where Trump told 33 lies, few commented on Trump's remark, "Maybe there is no hacking." But, on October 10th, NBC News reported that Trump "was personally briefed on Russia's role in the hacks by U.S. officials."

We've gotten so used to Trump's lies that it's easy to dismiss this particular lie as, "Trump continuously lies because he can." But in a new book, "The Plot to Hack America," intelligence expert Malcolm Nance suggests that Trump is a pawn in Vladimir Putin's own version of "Game of Thrones;" Putin wants to humiliate President Obama and Secretary Clinton and is using Trump, together with Russian spy agencies, to accomplish his objectives.

Nance speculates that Putin has enlisted Trump by appealing to Trump's vanity and greed. In return, Trump has taken the most pro-Russia stance of any political candidate in recent memory. In the second debate, Trump suggested that the US should abandon Aleppo because "it has fallen." He "explained": "Syria is Russia" and "Russia is killing Isis." (It appeared that Trump was saying that all of the occupants of Aleppo belong to Isis -- something that is far from true). Trump has called Vladimir Putin a more capable leader than President Obama. He's called for normalizing relations with Russia, "Wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along, as an example, with Russia?"

Trump claims he has no financial ties to Russia: "I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia. I don't deal there. I have no businesses there. I have no loans from Russia." Here's what the Washington Post says: "There is all kinds of evidence, including statements from his advisers and family members that Trump has done business with Russia. Donald Trump Jr. said in 2008 that 'Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.' Alan Garten, general counsel of the Trump Organization, told our colleagues in May: 'I have no doubt, as a company, I know we've looked at deals in Russia. And many of the former Russian republics.' "

Time Magazine reported: "As major banks in America stopped lending him money following his many bankruptcies, the Trump organization was forced to seek financing from non-traditional institutions. Several had direct ties to Russian financial interests in ways that have raised eyebrows. What's more, several of Trump's senior advisors have business ties to Russia or its satellite politicians."

Trump could prove he has no financial ties to Russia by releasing his tax returns, but he refuses to do this. Conservative columnist George Will observed, "Perhaps one more reason why we're not seeing [Trump's] tax returns is because he is deeply involved in dealing with Russian oligarchs and others."

The hacking and publication of Trump's complete tax returns will be the ultimate October surprise. Given that Obama/Clinton are very irritated with Putin, coupled with the capabilities of American cyber-security services, it's very likely that Trump's tax returns will be released before November 8th.

Defiant wrote:

Holman wrote: So it's got to be that (1) he truly believes he's smarter than anyone alive and that his untrained intuition beats anything any expert could know, (2) he trusts only loyal cronies (such as Stone with his line to WikiLeaks, Paul Manafort with his Eastern European lobbying connections, and Carter Page with his Gazprom-based Putinophilia) who have persuaded him of their superior expertise, or (3) he thinks the intelligence establishment is lying to him.

Kraken wrote: He is said to have a very short attention span, so maybe he just can't follow the briefings.

Max Peck wrote:Trump, working for or with the Russians? Crazy talk...

“Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure,” said Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio.

“I’ll look for . . . well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”

The first reason that the founders created the Electoral College is hard to understand today. The founding fathers were afraid of direct election to the Presidency. They feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power.
[...]
Hamilton and the other founders believed that the electors would be able to insure that only a qualified person becomes President. They believed that with the Electoral College no one would be able to manipulate the citizenry. It would act as check on an electorate that might be duped.

A beleaguered Donald Trump sought to undermine the legitimacy of the U.S. presidential election on Saturday, pressing unsubstantiated claims the contest is rigged against him, vowing anew to jail Hillary Clinton if he's elected and throwing in a baseless insinuation his rival was on drugs in the last debate.

Not even the country's more than two centuries of peaceful transitions of political leadership were sacrosanct as Trump accused the media and the Clinton campaign of conspiring against him to undermine a free and fair election.

"The election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president," he said, referring to the several women who have come forward in recent days to say that Trump had groped or sexually assaulted them. He has denied the claims, calling the women liars.

Earlier Saturday, Trump took to Twitter to warn that "100% fabricated and made-up charges, pushed strongly by the media and the Clinton Campaign, may poison the minds of the American Voter. FIX!"

"Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail," he added. "Instead she is running for president in what looks like a rigged election."

In a country with a history of peaceful political transition, his challenge to the election's legitimacy - as a way to explain a loss in November, should that happen - was a striking rupture of faith in American democracy. Trump has repeatedly claimed without offering evidence that election fraud is a serious problem and encouraged his largely white supporters to "go and watch" polling places in certain areas to make sure things are "on the up and up."

The Trump campaign has officially severed ties with Ohio's Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges just weeks before the presidential election in the must-win battleground, according to a letter sent by Trump's Ohio state director.

After Borges expressed concerns about Trump's tactics in numerous interviews this week, the Trump campaign wrote in a letter that "Chairman Borges does not represent or speak for the candidate and he no longer has any affiliation with the Trump-Pence campaign."

"This past week, Chairman Borges conduced a self-promotional media tour with state and national outlets to criticize our party's nominee. I have no idea what game he was playing," wrote Trump's Ohio state director Robert Paduchik in the letter flagged by the Columbus Dispatch. “It’s no great secret that Chairman Borges was never fully on board, but his actions over the last week demonstrate that his loyalties to Gov. John Kasich’s failed presidential campaign eclipse his responsibility as chairman of the Ohio Republican Party."

During a campaign rally Saturday in New Hampshire, the GOP presidential nominee compared himself and Clinton to athletes.

"Athletes, they make them take a drug test, right. I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate," Trump said.

"Why don't we do that? We should take a drug test, prior, because I don't know what's going on with her, but at the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning, and at the end it was like, 'Oh, take me down,' " Trump said, imitating Clinton. "She could barely reach her car.'"

Trump said he was willing to take drug test.

Holman wrote:I think they should take a Poli Sci test.

39.How many justices are on the Supreme Court?
▪ nine (9)

Blackhawk wrote:This has been a bit of an awakening for me. I'm not blind, but I never quite took seriously how quickly everything could turn to shit. I mean, I knew it could - but seeing somebody actually lay that particular set of cards on the table is a little sobering.

I've just enough trust in our system to believe that it won't happen, but I do think it will be a while before the bees stop buzzing. At least Trump has guaranteed that they'll be marginalized for a few years.

Skinypupy wrote:

Trump said he was willing to take drug test.

He is truly insane.

GreenGoo wrote:Any chance this will destroy Pence's career? Because that would be a nice side benefit.

Isgrimnur wrote:The people of Milwaukee County need to have him removed from office forthwith.